{"id":99811,"date":"2025-12-30T09:40:25","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/99811\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T09:40:25","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T09:40:25","slug":"could-florida-residents-stop-paying-tolls-governor-desantis-floats-the-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/99811\/","title":{"rendered":"Could Florida residents stop paying tolls? Governor Desantis floats the idea."},"content":{"rendered":"

SANIBEL, Fla. \u2014 Paying for a toll like the one at the Sanibel Causeway can add up. But now, there\u2019s talk about changing that.<\/p>\n

Fox 4\u2019s Sanibel Community Correspondent Austin Schargorodski went to the island to see how people feel about Governor Ron DeSantis\u2019 idea to get rid of tolls for Florida residents.<\/p>\n

Watch to hear about the Governor’s idea and what Sanibel drivers think about it:<\/p>\n

Could Florida residents stop paying tolls? Governor Desantis floats the idea<\/p>\n

Lines of cars rolled through the Sanibel toll plaza Monday. There\u2019s at least a $6 fee, but that could change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to be able to, you know, knock out the tolls and stuff,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n

At a Florida Cabinet meeting in December, Gov. DeSantis suggested a plan that would eliminate tolls for permanent Florida residents.<\/p>\n

\"Governor<\/p>\n

The Florida Channel<\/p>\n

Governor Ron Desantis<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could charge the visitors and they could probably support it all and give our Florida residents a break. I think that would be really good,\u201d DeSantis said.<\/p>\n

People Schargorodski spoke with on the Sanibel Causeway agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m all for it. That sounds great,\u201d one driver said. <\/p>\n

\u201cI like the idea of being able to explore the state without having to pay the extra fees,\u201d another added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government can support it and wants to give citizens a freebie for a while, that sounds good,\u201d another person said.<\/p>\n

\"Sanibel<\/p>\n

Fox 4 <\/p>\n

Sanibel driver<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a lot of money tied to tolls. The state said in a report that it brought in nearly $1.31 billion in toll revenue during fiscal year 2025. In Lee County alone, tolls generated about $52 million in 2024, according to a financial report.<\/p>\n

On Sanibel, the city said it receives about 21 percent of the revenue from the Sanibel toll plaza, usually between $1 million and $1.5 million a year.<\/p>\n

\"Cars<\/p>\n

Fox 4 <\/p>\n

Cars rolling through Sanibel toll plaza<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that money were to be decreased, then we would have to offset that somehow in order to keep that same level of service for maintenance and repairs, any improvement that we see the need for on Sanibel,\u201d said Sanibel spokesperson, Eric Jackson.<\/p>\n

Schargorodski reached out to FDOT to ask whether visitors could end up paying more to cover any lost toll revenue from the change, but had not heard back.<\/p>\n

For now, DeSantis has asked the state\u2019s financial director to look into the idea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SANIBEL, Fla. \u2014 Paying for a toll like the one at the Sanibel Causeway can add up. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":99812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21594,2683,28,30,29,264,5620,356,52458,11921,52459,25213],"class_list":["post-99811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-bridge","tag-desantis","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-fox-4","tag-governor-desantis","tag-lee-county","tag-leeway","tag-sanibel-florida","tag-sunpass","tag-tolls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}